With it safe to label six of our MLive Game of the Week polls for Week 8 football as "barnburners,'' we got curious.

What's a burning barn got to do with a close race?

Wikipedia tell us the answer is goes back to abolitionists in the Civil War era.

Some folks were zealot enough to burn their own barns for the cause, and then the term evolved through the years today to mean anything that's really exciting.

And that's what we've got in the MLive.com Game of the Week for Week 8. We launched our polls in 10 regions around Michigan on Friday, and we're pleased with the response over the weekend.

Your vote determines what game we'll highlight in our previews each week before the action, and then we'll send two reporters and a photographer to the winning games to provide lots of in-depth coverage, including a live blog and comments from the game.

And so far ... well ... our polls in Muskegon, Saginaw, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Lansing and Jackson are all barnburners.

The most recent voter's guide and polls are below:

Grand Rapids: Holland Christian at Byron Center has a big lead, but Grand Rapids Christian at Lowell (a big game) is still in the picture.

Kalamazoo: Flint Powers at Climax-Scotts has a big lead, but Parchment at Kalamazoo Hackett and Mattawan at Kalamazoo Central a drawing votes. In a final twist, the huge Portage Central at St. Joseph game was added to the ballot today.